Friday, July 1, 2011

Undomestic Goddess

I will never be considered a Stepford wife, possibly much to my husband's dismay.

Last week a woman at work brought in some banana bread and brownies for the rest of us to gorge ourselves on. She almost instantly started identifying the 'flaws' of her baking, pointing out that it's too dry (which it wasn't...it was delicious, and quite frankly? Beggars can't be choosers). At one point she even mentioned that her hubby commented on the dryness of the baked goods. When I almost choked on brownie upon hearing this she explained that it was because he has gotten used to a certain standard when it comes to her baking, and can now readily identify anything that doesn't make the grade. This? Is her first mistake. Her second mistake is baking anything from scratch. If it doesn't come from a box, I don't know what to do with it.

It seems as though subconsciously my approach has been to bake as little as possible so that husband appreciates the few times that baking does take place, regardless of how bad said baking might be.

Unfortunately for him, the same approach applies to cooking. Every week I generate a meal plan that outlines what our dinners will be. Sometimes the execution of this meal plan is a little lacking and it takes little to no effort to support a plan for ordering in or dining out. For the most part, the meals cooked at home are simple - partially to accommodate my equivalent 5-year old palate, and partially to accommodate my/our laziness. Once in a while I will take on a 'big' meal - a vat of chili, a cauldron of spaghetti...but even these satiate my rebellion against domesticity as I know that this one-time commitment to preparation will provide enough excess to feed us for a week or two. And indeed it does.

I honestly and truly can not wait for the day that we bring in enough income to justify paying people to clean up after us. Don't get me wrong - we don't live in filth or thrive in squalor, but when I have time to be at home, I can most likely be found curled up on the love seat reading young-adult-pornography. Mind you when that glorious day comes and the cleaning staff are on their way to our doorstep, I will most likely be found cleaning because I couldn't possibly have the cleaning-people thinking that we keep a dirty house.

Not every Stepford wife will be top of the charts in the looks department, but it certainly isn't for lack of trying. The dedication to grooming, accessorizing and keeping up appearances seems exhausting. If I'm not going to or coming from somewhere, darling husband is most likely looking at a wife who looks like she just got electrocuted thanks to the frizzy hair and yesterdays make-up relocating about an inch lower than where I initially put it on. It may also be a few days before I remember what that razor and tall slim aerosol can in the bathroom caddy is to be used for. I wouldn't say that I'm an Amazon, but "smooth as a baby's bottom" would rarely be a term used to describe me.

Despite these things, husband stays by my side. We just celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary (9 years together) in a last week at the all-romantic zoo (a place where a teacher-friend of mine recently said "Oh! I just took my grade 2's there last week!"). Stay tuned for a re-enactment of the zoo festivities using "grow-your-own-safari-animals".